


Case Study of the Smoking H. Spadix

by astadelic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-08
Updated: 2011-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-24 10:02:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/262207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astadelic/pseuds/astadelic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unusual specimen in an unlikely location.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Case Study of the Smoking H. Spadix

Your shoes squeak against the featureless linoleum tile as you stumble into the bathroom. You hone in on an empty stall and chart a desperate path towards it, slamming the graffitied door behind you and sitting down heavily on the cold toilet seat.

For a few seconds, you breath silently, clutching your books to your chest and feeling their edges pressing against the lump in your throat. You shudder once, twice; your lips quiver. Then the first tear falls, and another, and another. Soon your cheeks are sticky wet and your face is twisted with the effort of remaining soundless.

You finally allow yourself one painfully juddering inhalation and are struck by the echo it leaves behind in the cold air. (Thank God there is nobody else in this bathroom. Thank God there is nobody else to hear you sob.)

The smell hits your nose out of nowhere, just as you are beginning to gradually calm down. It’s not an unfamiliar odor, but it is unwelcome, and it is certainly out of place in this setting: the charred, slightly artificial edge of a freshly lit cigarette.

There is someone else in the bathroom. There is someone else, and that person is smoking. (What a cliché, you think to yourself.)

Cautiously, you stand up and peer over the shrunken stall door. You don’t see any signs of life, and there are few good places to hide in a public school girls’ bathroom. You slowly unlatch the door and exit the stall, squeaking your shoes deliberately to make your presence known. (As if it wasn’t already.)

You’re walking past the mirror when you glance up and notice her in the reflection. She’s crumpled like a piece of paper in the tiny corner between the wall and the handicapped stall, one skinny leg thrown out haphazardly, the other tucked against her chest. Her chin rests on her knee.  She is wearing oversized square glasses, and her eyes are closed. In her crooked hand is a burning cigarette.

As you watch, she opens her eyes and looks straight at you in the mirror. She exhales, and a column of dusty gray rises from her parted lips. You are reminded of a scorpion, lifting its tail in warning. (Specifically, the _H. spadix_ , native to the southern deserts of North America, genus _Hadrurus,_ family _Caraboctinidae,_ order _Scorpiones,_ class _Arachnida,_ et cetera, et cetera.)

“Are you okay?” she asks at last. Her voice is surprisingly normal. Tinged slightly raspier by the smoke, perhaps, but seemingly well-maintained. (You wonder briefly if she’s a singer.)

Your eyes flicker to the dual piercings above her upper lip and linger there before you answer.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” (No, you’re not.)

She takes another drag. “Good. You sounded kind of upset in there.”

“I’m fine.” (You are not. No definition of the word “okay” can accurately define your current emotional state.)

“Are you sure?” She cocks an eyebrow.

“I’m absolutely sure.” 

You know this girl. She’s dangerous. She’s mean to her enemies and meaner to her friends. She skips class and jumps fences. She’ll do whatever she has to do to get what she wants. You don’t want to associate with this girl. In fact, it is the thing you would least like to do at the moment.

(Too late. She’s already talking to you.)

“You know, sometimes it’s good to just accept your emotions. To let it all out. I mean, how else do we deal with all this pent-up shit we’re always carrying around? I totally get it, dude. _Tooooooootally._ ” She stretches languorously and stands up. She’s wearing a baggy, paper-thin Nirvana t-shirt riddled with random slashes. You can see her blue bra underneath it, the strap cutting through Kurt Cobain’s face. (Kurt Cobain: born February 20, 1967, committed suicide April 5, 1994, at the age of twenty-seven.)

You blink and turn to face her.

“My emotions right now are—are completely satisfactory.” You’d meant to sound sarcastic, but instead you sound awkward and geeky. (Pathetic. You can do better than that.)

She smirks. “‘Completely satisfactory,’” she repeats mockingly. “Tell me, are you in honors? Something about you just screams honors kid.”

(What is it, you wonder? The pulled-too-tight ponytail? The bulging backpack and college physics textbook? The complete and total apathy?)

“Yes, I’m in honors.”

She nods slowly. “Good for you. What’s it like?”

You find yourself swallowing. “It’s really challenging…in a good way. The curriculum is great—although we do tend to get a lot of homework—but for the most part it’s alright…” It’s a rote repetition of memorized lines, the same thing you have said over and over to anyone who asks. You don’t really care at all about the fact that you’re in honors. It is a meaningless term, like so many others you hear every day.

She brushes a strand of unruly dark hair out of her face and adjusts her glasses. The cigarette trails smoke like a halo around her head.

“But you hate it there.”

“I—what?” (How does she know?)

“You hate it there,” she says again. “I can see it in your face. Trust me, no one hides anything from me.” She grins then, and it’s so unexpected and wily and utterly true that it catches you off-guard for a moment. ( _H. spadix._ )

“I don’t hate being in honors. I’m perfectly happy with honors,” you say, clutching your books a little tighter to your chest as affirmation. “Are you in honors?”

“Me? _Pffffffff._ ” Her eyes roll wildly. “No way in hell. That program is full of entitled, uptight little smartasses who think that just because the district ranks them higher or some shit like that, they’re automatically superior to everyone else. It’s an idiotic concept and I wouldn’t be caught dead taking part in it.”

You are stunned. You don’t usually talk much, but that is by choice. This is one of the rare occasions when you truly don’t know what to say.

She continues, gesturing wildly with her cigarette and pacing around the room. “I mean, is it really up to the administration to decide who gets to be taught AP American Lit and who gets stuck with the retards in remedial English? And based on such a stupid thing, too. Those scores. Those meaningless _test scores_! That’s what really bugs me. It’s that there is absolutely no fucking difference between the brats in the magnet and us poor unfortunates over here in gen-pop, except for who tested higher on some government asshole’s standardized test. Complete and utter bullshit, that’s what it is.”

“I…um…” You blink. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

There’s that arachnid-esque grin again. “Apology accepted, honors girl.” The way she says “honors girl” makes it sound like an insult. (Which it probably is.)

You stand there, shifting your weight, not really wanting to stay but not quite wanting to leave either. You’re fascinated by her. She is reckless, opinionated, foul-mouthed, pierced and slashed and smoking. She may not be in the honors program, but you think she’s more fiercely intelligent than anyone you’ve ever met.

(And all this after only, what, five minutes of conversation? You are much too easily impressed.)

Finally, you compose yourself. You turn and stride towards the door—you’ve got an SAT prep club to get to.

“Wait,” she calls. “What’s your name?”

“Aradia,” you say without turning around.

“I’m Vriska,” she says, and you can hear her cough. (How long has she been smoking?)

As the door swings shut behind you, you think you hear her murmur your name under her breath. But then you’re outside, swept up once again in the ebb and flow of the crowded high school hallways, and you leave your newfound specimen to her own inscrutable devices.


End file.
